Shrimp farming in the salt affected inland saline soils of Haryana

Saharwa, 23^rd July 2016.

With the aim to make awareness, opportunities and challenges on the prospects of shrimp farming in the salt affected inland saline soils of Haryana, a conference and farmers interaction meet was organized by Director, DN Farms, Haryana, Mr Sandeep Singh,  on ‘Haryana towards Blue Revolution’. The DN Farms has sought the shrimp feed technology transfer for the cost effective feed known as  ‘Vannamei Plus’, developed by Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture, and the farmer agreed to enter into an MoU. Subsequently scientific team from CIBA visited the proposed feed mill site to assess the technical suitability.

Dr K.K.Vijayan (Director, CIBA, Chennai)  inaugurated the conference on ‘Shrimp farming in the salt affected inland saline soils of Haryana’and highlighted the potential of shrimp farming in Haryana. Dr Vijayan cautioned  about the challenges of issues such as salinazation and the precautions to be taken while farming the shrimp in inland saline soils and emphasized the need for judicious use of water using modern technologies such as recirculation, re-use and crop rotation. Further he stressed the necessity for developing and strict implementation of Better Management Practices for sustainable shrimp aquaculture in this region, and requested the farmers to look forward long-term benefits, through sustainable approaches. Dr K. Ambasankar (Principal Scientist,CIBA) participated and delivered a lecture on ‘Nutrition and Feed Management in Shrimp Aquaculture’, in which Dr Ambasankar mentioned about the problems of nutrient loading, recycling of used water and adoption of environmental friendly farming practices.

In this conference the scientists from different institutes delivered lectures on various aspects of shrimp farming specific to inland saline soils. The conference was followed by interaction meet between the CIBA scientists and other resource persons with the shrimp farmers. The shrimp farmers actively interacted with CIBA scientists and clarified their quires on various aspects of shrimp farming. About 200 shrimp farmers and stakeholders participated in the conference and in the interaction meet.

(Source: ICAR- CIBA, Chennai)